After post-Newtown surge, gun sales return to normal

Al Allen of Double Action Indoor Shooting Center and Gun Shop said sales were about 60 percent of the last quarter of 2012
and early 2013.

The historic public firearms buying spree that erupted at the end of 2012 and continued into early 2013 has subsided, metro Detroit gun dealers say.

Sales have largely returned to typical fourth-quarter numbers.

"Things have stabilized. The panic to buy is pretty much over. The cost of the weapons has gone down to where it was before the panic," said Steve Graebner, owner and president of Wessel Gun Shop Inc. in Warren.

The Newtown, Conn., elementary school shootings in December 2012 fueled concerns of new gun control legislation — fears that largely proved unfounded — and gun stores locally and nationally saw an enormous demand for firearms and ammunition.

While manufacturers were able to eventually meet most demand for weapons such as the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, ammunition remains difficult for both dealers and the public to purchase in anything but small amounts.

"The problem is ammunition. All ammunition is extremely hard to get, from .45 auto down to .22 long rifle," Graebner said. "Everybody bought ammo for their new guns. The demand is still more than the supply. People are hoarding ammunition because it's not readily available. They're cranking it out, but it's not enough to meet demand."

Al Allen, owner of Double Action Indoor Shooting Center and Gun Shop in Madison Heights, said his sales were about 60 percent of the last quarter of 2012 and early 2013. That's more in line with a typical fourth quarter, he said.

"People weren't panic-buying," he said.

They were buying everything at the end of 2012, however: In five days after the Connecticut school shootings, Double Action sold its entire inventory of 116 rifles and more than 900 handguns — the biggest run on guns in the store's 25-year history, Allen said.

It wasn't until midsummer that gun manufacturers were able to meet customer demand, he said.

Ammunition remains difficult to get, Allen said, and so do some handgun models in demand, such as Springfield, Mass.-based Smith & Wesson Holding Corp.'s small-frame revolvers. The store's website listed a single Smith & Wesson Model 638 five-shot revolver available on Tuesday for $429.

"We've had no luck trying to keep up with customer requests for the entire year," he said. "They cannot make enough product to satiate the demand that's out there."

The industry

Sales of guns and ammunition total about $4 billion annually, according to estimates from the Newtown, Conn.-based National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry's trade association.

The gun industry has a $965 million annual economic impact on Michigan, according to a 2012 report from the foundation. The estimate is derived from direct and induced jobs and wages from the sale and manufacture of guns and ammo.

Between 70 million and 80 million Americans own more than 300 million firearms, according to a National Rifle Association estimate. The Congressional Research Service in November 2012 estimated 310 million guns.

Helping drive the increase nationally in gun sales are a continuing increase in hunting, and first-time gun buyers, said Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel at the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

"What we've seen over the last several years are many first-time buyers," he said.

Several firearm and ammunition manufacturers are in the process of adding capacity, Keane said, such as North Haven, Conn.-based gun maker O.F. Mossberg & Sons boosting factory production at its Texas facility.

The numbers

Point-of-sale federal background checks required for retail firearms transactions — the National Instant Criminal Background Check System — saw a record 21 million background checks in 2013, compared to 19.5 million checks in 2012 and 16.4 million in 2011.

While background checks, which have been compiled online since 1998, don't automatically mean a gun was sold at the time of the check, they're the industry proxy for measuring sales trends.

There were 2.7 million checks nationally in December 2012 and 2.4 million in January, the most active months in the system's history, according to federal data.

There were 503,979 firearms background checks in Michigan last year, FBI records show, topping the 430,405 checks in 2012 and the 356,635 in 2011.

Michigan saw 59,445 checks in December 2012 and 60,852 checks in January 2013, the two largest months in the system's history for the state. Michigan background checks fell off to 29,521 in July before creeping back up to 40,320 in October, another 39,996 in November and 37,647 in December — traditionally higher months, gun dealers say, because of hunting season and holiday shopping.

The public thirst for firearms also fueled an uptick in arms dealers in Michigan.

There were 4,318 active federal firearms licenses, needed to operate a business selling guns, in the state as of August, the bulk of them being gun dealers and collectors of "curios and relics," according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. That's up from 4,198 last year.

Of those licenses, the ATF data shows that 2,174 are for standard firearms sales, up from 2,112 last year. Many of those dealers also have the relic license.

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